Widowed in Pregnancy, Diagnosed With Aggressive Breast Cancer, and Gave Birth in a Hospital Parking Garage

In just over five months, 33-year-old Sapir Hodaya Gabai of Beit Yaakov lost her husband, Haim, while pregnant, was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer, and gave birth to her second daughter in a hospital underground parking garage amid rocket sirens during the war with Iran. She is now raising two small daughters alone, continuing cancer treatment, and battling Israeli bureaucracy, which she says is making everything harder.

Gabai wrote that she felt her husband’s death before it was confirmed. Haim had survived osteosarcoma, leukemia, and lymphoma several times. After his fourth recovery, he developed a leg infection, underwent amputation, and died of a heart attack about a year later. When he died, she was 16 weeks pregnant and had a 3-year-old daughter, Oria. She said she rushed home after telling her manager, found him dead in bed, attempted resuscitation, and called for a defibrillator before Magen David Adom arrived. She recalled the doctor later telling her he wanted to declare the time of death.

Weeks later, she discovered a hard lump in her breast in the shower and told her parents, “I have cancer.” Tests confirmed triple-negative breast cancer, described as highly aggressive and already advanced. The tumor measured 4.5 centimeters. Her husband’s oncologists at Sheba Medical Center handled the paperwork and were shocked to see her in their department. Because chemotherapy could only begin at week 24 of pregnancy, she started at week 25. She said the treatment, pain, and caring for a 3-year-old while pretending “business as usual” were overwhelming.

Doctors scheduled an induced birth at week 36. During the operation, amid the Iran war, the maternity ward was moved to the underground parking area. She delivered her daughter, Adal, with the help of two volunteer doulas, and then was taken to the maternity unit and later to a bomb shelter during air raids. Adal is now under heart monitoring because of possible effects from chemotherapy during pregnancy. Three weeks after birth, Gabai resumed chemotherapy, underwent PET-CT and MRI scans, and said no metastases were found, but she suffers from neuropathy that causes pain in her hands and legs.

Gabai said her parents moved in to help, but she still struggles with grief, motherhood, and administrative obstacles, including credit card companies that refuse to transfer standing orders without her late husband’s approval. She said people including Yehuda Glick, Hahk. Yinon Azulai, and Shuki Barif have helped her voluntarily. She said she shared her story to raise awareness of breast cancer, adding, “I know I broke Guinness records. It will satisfy me to know that because of me, one woman was saved,” and urged women to be checked by a breast surgeon once a year.